Cricket is played by two teams of eleven on a level, closely cut oval “pitch” preferably measuring about 525 ft (160 m) by about 550 ft (170 m). Two wickets are placed 66 ft (20.12 m) apart near the middle of the field. A wicket consists of two wooden crosspieces (bails) resting on three wooden stumps 28 in. (71.1 cm) high.

At each wicket stands a batsman. If the opposing bowler, delivering the ball from near the opposing wicket, knocks down the bails of the batsman's wicket, the batsman is retired. In delivering the hard, leather-covered ball, the bowler throws overarm but may not bend the arm, and the ball usually approaches the batsman on one bounce. After six bowls to one batsman, an umpire (there is one at each wicket) calls “over,” and another bowler begins bowling to the batsman's partner at the opposing wicket. The players in the field shift position according to the batsmen.

If the batsman hits the ball with his willow paddle-shaped bat far enough so that both batsmen may run to exchange places, a run is scored. When the ball is hit a long distance (in any direction, since there are no foul lines), up to four exchanges or runs may be made. (If the ball crosses the boundary of the field on the ground, four runs are scored automatically; if it clears the boundary in the air, six are scored.) However, if the opposing team recovers the ball and uses it to knock down the bails of a wicket before the batsman reaches it, the batsman is out. A batsman is also retired if an opposing fielder catches a batted ball on the fly (as in baseball), or for any of several more technical reasons. An outstanding turn at bat may result in more than 100 runs, a “century.”

A game usually consists of two innings; in one innings all players on each team bat once in a fixed order (unless a team, having scored what it considers runs adequate to win, chooses to retire without completing its order); a game may take several days to complete. Substitutions are allowed only for serious injury

(Original post by wonderboy)
Sure - How many are you after, it would just be a case of changing one or two lines of code... I was just thinking private leagues could be used for small groups of friends, but I guess if you have larger online communities wanting to play then they will want more!

I also have to change the high scoring bonus slightly (Not sure if anyone has even bothered taking a look at that)...

Any other chages you think I should make, or maybe some additional features? There are quite a few people signing up and not making predictions.

Any ideas on how to get more and more people to sign up? I want to have a LARGE number of active members come August 14th. Anyone have some contacts in high places ?

Thanks for positive comments + rep!

W.

I'm not sure about how many to a league, but if you could make it easy so that a league can keep increasing its size and has no upper limit (i.e. if 24 members join the league size is 24 but if a new member joins the league expands for him). As for increasing the number of methods, i recommend a PM to Ollie, if you can get him to endorse it as an official ukl activity in the 'about' section then loads will join. If you need any help with anything, feel free to PM,

well the aus side would get alot of the places, and also because there is an Aus vs Rest of the World XI Super Series going on next year, i think it would be better to pick a rest of the world xi, and heres mine:

1 Sehwag, a destructive opener, averging over 50 in test cricket
2 Gibbs, very solid opening bat and brilliant in the field
3 Dravid, statistically the best batter in world cricket since 2002 and has the highest batting average since 2000, good record vs aus
4 Sachin, a legend, and good record against aus
5 Lara, like SRT a legend and can turn it on at any time
6 Laxman or Kallis, im slightly more tempted to go for Laxman because of his outstanding record against the aussies, he averages over 60 vs aus, whereas kallis has done precious little against them, however kallis' allround value would probably get him in there
7Sangakarra (w/k), good w/k batter with a high batting average
8 Shoaib Akhtar, has ripped through the Aus batting side quite a few times, gets these moments of brilliance
9 Pollock, superb line and length bowler.
10 Harmison, been brilliant so far
11 Muralitharan/Harbhajan Singh, most ppls choice would be Murali ofcourse but you cannot discount Harbhajan given his outstanding record against Aus, when he picked up 32 wickets in 3 tests against them

1 SRT, best ever ODI player statistically, 37 tons
2 Sehwag, BRUTAL in odi cricket
3 Kallis, very fine odi allrounder
4 Lara, again, a fine odi cricketer, he JUST got the nod ahead of Inzimam-ul-Haq, who is the 2nd leading run scorer of all time in odi cricket
5 Dravid w/k, has done surprisingly well with the gloves, his batting has improved alot with donning the gloves aswell.
6 Flintoff, good quality allrounder
7 Yuvraj Singh, fine fielder as well as a very powerful late order biffer
8 Pollock, very economical bowler and can hit some lusty blows too
9 Muralitharan no doubt this time, a very good odi bowler
10 Irfan Pathan, great start to his odi career, a strike rate of 27 and averaging 2 wkts per game, the leading odi wicket taker in world cricket this year
11 Shane Bond, awesome exponent of swing bowling, very fast bowler

I would like to know personnaly whether chelsea fans are happy with their players their team is signing? To me, alot of them are not world class which is what you would expect with the money avaliable. Put another way, if I was manager I would of made different signings.

I agree that Sehwag, when on form, IS a good opening batsman, but he's one of the most inconsistent players in the game. One day he'll score, like 150 runs, and then, in another match just days later, he gets out for zero. You can't really rely on him.

and also in australia i felt he was very consistent:45,0,47,47,195,11,72, 47

i think thats pretty consistent personally, one failure in pakistan and 2 in australia. having watched all of his test matches i can tell you that he saves himself for the big occasion, like scoring a hundred on debut or getting a triple hundred against pakistan or a big hundred against australia

one thing i get really angry about is when ppl call sehwag a slogger because he isnt, he has a test match triple hundred and a test average of 53, and you dont get that by slogging, you cant score a triple hundred in tests by slogging.

(Original post by Incomplete)
I would like to know personnaly whether chelsea fans are happy with their players their team is signing? To me, alot of them are not world class which is what you would expect with the money avaliable. Put another way, if I was manager I would of made different signings.

Ok....i'll put down a list of the player's we've signed..with a comment about each of them....illusttrating my views on them. If there's anyone i've missed..let me know

Robben- Brilliant
Cech- Good signing....gd competition for Carlo
Tiago- Who?? I've heard he's good though....
Carvalho- Again...not too sure sure he is...but seemed to play well in Euro 2004....£20M though??? Bit steep imo
Ferreira- We did need a right back...and he did well in europe last year....but again..£13M...bit steep?
Drogba- Touted as the next Henry?? If he plays like Henry does....well worth the money....looked good in europe last year...
Kezman- Imo....brilliant signing....esp for only £5M....well worth the money.

(Original post by Incomplete)
I was thinking more like
Mutu, Crespo, Veron, Parker, Johnson and Geremi. I know that they are all very talented it just seems to me that the team does not reflect the money spent overall.

I certainly think that clubs put the price up for chelsea.

Ok..my view on them:

Mutu- Jury's out on him...started brilliantly..and definitely has the talent...just seemed to lose his tough in front of goal....if he gets it back...wicked!
Crespo- Despite him not reaching the amazing form expected of him...he still managed to score 12 goals in about 20 starts...which isn't a bad return...i blame Ranieri's rotation not allowing players to have a good run in the side...and also his constant switching of strike partners...
Veron- Crap..nuff said
Parker- Will get better....lots of spirit
Johnson- Price tag was high....but he has a great future ahead of him!
Geremi- Haven't really seen much of him..though he was hardly ever played in his natural right sided role...

Overall...yeh....i think Ranieri and Chelsea were made to pay far too much for some of these players...but when you're selling players to Chelsea..you know money is not an issue...so you'll hold out for a higher fee.

People always seem to have problems defining certain rules and laws, e.g. offside law in football and as im a cricket supporter its baffling to see so many ppl not knowing wat lbw is so i thought id define it:

for a batsman to be given out LBW (leg before) the ball must hit the batsman in line with the stumps and be going on to hit the stumps, when he is playing a shot. However if the batsman does not offer a shot, the ball can hit the batsman outside the line of offstump, but the umpire must deem that the ball is going on to hit the stumps
In neither case, can the ball pitch outside the line of leg stump, if it does then the appeal is not valid.

(Original post by Incomplete)
I would like to know personnaly whether chelsea fans are happy with their players their team is signing? To me, alot of them are not world class which is what you would expect with the money avaliable. Put another way, if I was manager I would of made different signings.

i'm sure ranieri and mourinho, tried to get world class players like Ronaldinho but they aint got the rep that barca, real or man utd. have. So they gotta settle with the world class players of the future

mobbdeeprob, the fact that 27 athletes as you say, (probably more but just being covered up) are under investigation at the moment doesnt really account for a large percentage of the athletes competing in athens. Obvioulsy the actual number of doped athletes will be much much greater than this number. By your same argument you should not be watching any sport at all because doping DOES occur in the majority of sports.

People like you do the sport of athletics no good whatsoever by saying comments that you do not know to be true to other people who do not know any better than to believe what you are saying and presume that all athletes are doped.

I find your comments extremely disrespectful to all the clean athletes who have worked extremely hard for years to be able to compete at the Olympics. I do realise that the sport has many doped athletes in it but the sport is cleaner than ever and this should provide more reason to watch the athens olympics.

I also would presume that you do not know the ins and outs of the scandals in the USA (unless you work for USATF or WADA) and all you are getting your information from is the press which are notoriously bad at dealing with doping cases before the truth is revealed.

(Original post by andy_)
i'm sure ranieri and mourinho, tried to get world class players like Ronaldinho but they aint got the rep that barca, real or man utd. have. So they gotta settle with the world class players of the future

Many players have noted that Man Utd's dominance in the premiership is coming to an end. No idea if any of thoese are world class players, but it might help Chelsea's cause